


you give me your hand (but let me decide when to reach)

by blackorchids



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Love, Male-Female Friendship, as with every other thing i've ever posted i'm not sure where this is going, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:48:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the seven boys elena gilbert loved</p>
            </blockquote>





	you give me your hand (but let me decide when to reach)

**Author's Note:**

> not even gonna lie but that title and the chapter title (and probably the rest of the chapter titles) come from a hannah montana song i swear i listen to good music too

She’s a heap of tangled, tan limbs, curled up at the foot of her bed as she reads the book they’d all been assigned for English summer reading. Tyler struggles to keep his hold on the tree limb as he slowly reaches out with a sneaker-clad foot and taps at the glass, holding his breath.

Elena looks up, startled, and glances quickly at her half-shut bedroom door before peering at the window. Tyler taps the glass with his toes again and she drops her book, leaping off the bed in one clean, graceful move that’s bound to land her on the cheerleading team come autumn, when they start their freshmen year of high school.

The brown-haired girl throws open the window and pokes her head out, rearing back when she spots the boy sitting in the tree.

“Tyler!” Elena hisses, glancing back at her door once more before leaning out again, brushing her hair behind her ears. “What--” but her voice stops in its tracks when he leans forward, his face hitting the combined light of her bedroom lamp and the full moon above.

Elena takes in the handprint marring his temple and cheek-bone, glowing red and painful-looking. Tyler’s dark-brown hair is messed up in a way that he never allows it to be and his lower lip is trembling, just a little bit, even as he clenches his jaw tight. She leans further out of the window, bracing her knees on the cushioned seat and extending her arms, grasping at his extended forearm and allowing him to push most of his weight on her as he takes the leap, landing with a thump on the seat.

“Elena?” her mother calls from downstairs, and the young teenagers freeze, staring at one another for a beat of silence.

“I’m fine, mom!” she finally shouts back, forcing some laughter into her voice even as she moves closer to her door to shut it firmly, “Just fell off the bed!”

Her mom’s laughter rings up the stairs, along with her dad’s amused ‘be careful, Lenny’, and Elena relaxes against the door, pressing it closed very quietly before turning to face Tyler.

“Did your dad do that?” she asks him quietly, her voice solemn. He looks very out of place in her girly bedroom, his shoulders newly-broad, his chin and jaw beginning their long journey into angular manhood. Tyler’s only recently passed her up in height, and, while Matty is still taller, Tyler’s face already looks more mature. It throws her off, how old he looks, even as he stands, a little folded in on himself, amongst her floral curtains and stuffed-animal-littered window seat.

“Who else would’ve?” he snaps back, his voice gruff and she frowns at his attitude but moves closer to him anyway, reaching up and grasping his chin between two fingers, firmly turning his face to the side so she can look better at the mark that is beginning to bruise. Elena leads him to her bed, pushing him down onto it and taking off his shoes, dragging a hand through his messy hair and pulling her comforter up to his chest, even as he leans on her pillows.

She has a very sad expression on her face, and Tyler wants to jump up, shout that he doesn’t need her _pity_ , that he doesn’t need pity from a girl who’s never suffered at all; the girl who has the perfect family. But she drags her hand through his hair again, patting it down and drawing gentle fingertips over his aching cheekbone, her own lips quivering as she takes it all in, and he can’t bring himself to yell at her.

“I’m going to get you something to eat and an icepack,” Elena tells him at last, leaning back and picking her book up off the floor, setting it atop her journal on the nightstand. “I’ll be right back.”

Elena brings him a plate of heated-up leftover tacos and a towel wrapped around a ladybug icepack and then goes and busies herself in the bathroom, allowing him some privacy to scarf down the food as she loudly gets ready for bed, pulling her hair into a loose ponytail and brushing her teeth. She says goodnight to Jeremy and shouts it down the stairs to her parents, before finally slipping back into her darkened room.

Tyler feels the dip in the mattress as she slides in next to him and he can’t help but lay, stiff as a board. He’s uncomfortable, and he doesn’t know how to relax. They haven’t shared a bed since they were about eight, and he’s still a little mortified at how vulnerable he’s been with her, even if Elena is the most likely one of their group of sometimes-friends to just take all of this in stride and never mention it again.

He hears her sigh and feels her scoot closer to him, and he thinks he’s going to have a heart attack when her arms wrap around him, pulling him close to her, one hand gently guiding his head to settle into the warm crook of her neck, and his face is _smushed into her soft skin_ and he has the fleeting thought that Grayson is going to _shoot him_ , but then her fingers are carding through his hair the way her mother used to do when he was small and he’d fallen off the swing and scraped up his knees.

He lets out a huge gust of air and positively sinks into her, lips trembling and tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

“You’re okay,” Elena mumbles into the top of his head, tangling her legs with his and just _holding_ him, tight and protective. “I got you, Ty.”

**Author's Note:**

> well
> 
> come talk to me or prompt me on tumblr [@rosalinesbenvolio](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com)!!


End file.
